When we feel we are not quite enough

Sometimes we feel we are not quite enough.  We look at those around that seem to have it all together, that seem better, more spiritual, more fun, more happy, more… well just more!

It happens this incidental looking and comparing, but it is not true, it is not life, it is a lie and we know that so step back and remember the truth.

Paul talks to us about living up to what we have believed, know what we know and live there. That revelation that God has given you, walk in that. Dont eye up those around you and their revelations as if you can live there. You cant. You will die a death a 1000 times trying to live in someone elses knowledge or life.

Cosy up to listen to another’s truth. Hear it, weigh it, taste it, if it brings lights and sounds and fireworks… or just that deep AHA moment, grasp it,  and let it marinate, eat it. It can take a while for that revelation to grow in you and for you to be able to live there, but be patient, God is not finished yet.
That revelation will grow out of YOUR life and YOUR experiences, God knows you uniquely and as you allow the life in the words to move through your being you will find it becoming your revelation, your wisdom, your truth.
You dont need to be anything other than willing to go deeper. Allow our beloved God to take you to places that are out of your comfort zone, allow Him to speak to you with words that maybe dont quite fit your current theories. That maybe dont sound quite like synagogue, as Paul did. He heard Jesus say many things that were contrary to “church”. He really was a Hebrew of Hebrews, and God stopped him and said, hang on a minute there really is MORE and VERY VERY different!.
Yes Paul became blind and was struck down so I guess that helped his willingness! But we have so much more history to go on than Paul. He was writing history.
We know so much more because his truth is there for us to read, We can eat his learnings and wait until the life that he found explodes within us, within our world, within our lived lives.

Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I am pressing on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 My brothers, I do not count myself to have taken possession, but one thing I do, forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things before,
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Php 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be of this mind. And if in anything you are otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you.
Php 3:16 Yet, as to what we have already attained, let us walk in the same standard, let us focus on the same thing.

Not that we have already made it, for of course we haven’t, but because there is so much MORE, we can press on and press in, drawing down deeper into the God of wonder who fills everything in every way. Laying hold of THAT, that one life that we are called to live, being present to it, living IN it, the unique, beautiful, precious space in time that is given to us to possess and make our own. Lay HOLD of that, for this is what He took hold of you for. TO be present in this LIFE with you, Christ in you, filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. CHRIST IN YOU. Let each day be NEW, learning and growing from yesterday but forgetting what is behind, what fell over yesterday, and living fully in today, digging deeper into the ground of His life in you today. Press on, press in, as God calls you higher up and farther in, growing up into the head, walking each day in that which we have already attained, living up to what we have believed and what God has marinated in us.
Dont be robbed of the beauty of your precious life by trying to live and walk another’s journey, each of our steps on the paths of our lives are ours and ours alone. No one else can live them for us, only He can live them in us as we daily become one with him.

Embrace the place where you are at, and press in, draw close so you can hear that still small voice that speaks of Home, for each of us has that unique place in the household of God, in the Bride that we are becoming. It is a place that no one else can fill, so be you and fill it.

The shame game

I had a “disappointing” experience today.

I received an email from a director of the company I work for.  He sent this email to a number of people, all who were peers of each other.  He proceeded to “snark” for want of a better word at those in the “To” box of the email, petty grievances, harsh words, shaming words, “disappointments”, that he felt some had given him in a particular piece of work.

All of these people were hard workers, they all were working long hours and desperately attempting to meet demands that were impossible to meet, and his reaction to where they could not meet these demands was this email.

What is it about our culture and the culture of the world that causes us to believe that shame is a motivator.  That shame can instigate change.  That shame is a truth teller.

Shame is none of those things.  It is a jailer, a prison, a crucifier of joy and worth, an enabler of broken individuals in authority who believe it is acceptable to reach out from their lofty podium and cripple the people they look down on.  Managers who use shame as a management style are bullies and there should be no place for them as managers, unless it is on an intensive management deliverance course!

Shame is a despicable tool in the arsenal belt of Institutional church too.  As if you didnt know that!  It is used to keep bums on seats, to control and keep congregations walking down the aisles, working in all sorts of church “ministries, and generally to just keep the people in line.  The god of those churches is not my God.  The Jesus of those places is most definitely not my Jesus.  He is a figment, an idol, a man made flagellation tool for authoritarians to threaten the people of God with.

It is NOT a tool that our Beloved uses.  He came with Grace and Truth, he came to show us the face of God, without condemnation or price.  He bore our shame so we did not have to and anyone who tries to put that millstone back around your neck had better beware because causing others to stumble is not a line you want on your heavenly cv!

Know that you are of infinite worth, that you are wholly precious and beloved and He knows you down to the very atom of your being, and He does not condemn you.  If he does not then whatever measure of shame may come seeping up to your door, brought by whoever, it is NOT for you.  Do not let the knowledge of your belovedness, your preciousness and your worth be stolen by a lie.

He is building His church, His glorious Bride, and there is no shame in or on her.